FIVE YEAR PLAN EIGHTH (1993-1998)

FIVE YEAR PLAN, EIGHTH (1993-1998) The work on the Eighth Five Year Plan began in earnest after Pakistan successfully dealt with an economic emergency in 1993 The emergency was caused by a serious political disagreement between President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif The conflict between the two could not be resolved by constitutional means, and a caretaker government under Moeen Qureshi was inducted into office to organize another general election The caretaker administration was in power for three months and worked successfully on improving the country’s fiscal and external situations There was not time for the Planning Commission to work on formulating the Eighth Plan while the caretaker administration was in office The Planning Commission worked on the new Plan document in the winter of 1993-1994 and made it public in the early months of 1994 At that time, Benazir Bhutto had returned to office as prime minister, and the Plan reflected her government’s priorities The Plan document dealt in considerable detail with the sectoral priorities that were to be assigned by the government, the amount of public resources that were to be committed to the realization of these objectives, and the role that the private sector would play in promoting development The government did not indicate how it was going to achieve any of these objectives, however The Plan remained a paper document; it was not acted on by the government

The Bhutto government was dismissed in November 1996, well before the end of the plan period